Typical X-Men alternate timeline/universe/dimension crap. Tell a story about the X-Men. I don't care about their alts. I've only cared about alts in Exiles and that's because they were handled cleverly with the team featuring mixed alts jumping from timeline to timeline.

Apocalypse and the other "world-changing" crossovers led me to stop reading the X-books. The moment Rachel Summers invaded the 616 universe, things went downhill.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Rich Johnston wrote:Marvel already announced a Scarlet Spider #1 by Chris Yost and Ryan Stegman spinning out of the Point One oneshot in January. But it’s not the only book. Alongside the previously announced Defenders series and the Ultron War in Avengers, we’re also going back to the mother of all alternate universes, in Age Of Apocalypse #1. Or have they turned up here?

Bleeding Cool tagged that with one of the Marvel teasers a couple of weeks ago, but I think you can consider this confirmation. Until the official confirmation today or tomorrow at the New York Comic Con, I guess. They might even say who the creators are, you never know.

You know what, considering all those Marvel teasers, I think we can safely look forward to a new Nova #1 as well. I wonder if that will be announced, or if they’ll save it for later..

Last edited by TheButcher on Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It was nothing short of revolutionary. In 1995, Marvel Comics teased inside their monthly editor’s/letters columns that they would be canceling every X-Men related title. And then they did the unthinkable: they actually followed through on those teases.

Yes, Marvel cut every X-Men book short, and effectively ended the entire Marvel Universe, from the mutants’ perspectives, replacing them all with new titles. This was the Age of Apocalypse.

It was an unprecedented event, and one that we posit couldn’t be done again – at least not the same way. Back then, the internet was nascent and there weren’t leaks or spoilers – it was teased, and then they did it, and it gave readers a very unique experience. As it turns out, it also gave creators a unique experience.

With the current flow of “Summer 2015” event teasers from Marvel Comics, one of them was for, naturally, Age of Apocalypse. It got us thinking about the unique nature of the event, and wondering whether anyone could do an event of its kind again in the modern era. For insight, we went to the source, one of the lead architects of the original event, Scott Lobdell. As an X-writer in the 90s, Lobdell wrote, essentially, every major X-Men character over the course of several years. He wrote both main X-books, and co-created new characters like Generation X. Lobdell, along with folks like Fabian Nicieza and Howard Mackie (along with a compliment of artists who modern-day X-fans know just as well with names like Bachalo and Kubert), were synonymous with the X-Gene in the 90s. They continued a legacy forged by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld and more just a few years before.

We talked with Lobdell about Age of Apocalypse, and got some surprising insight into the original story’s inception and creation. He told us how they pulled it off back then, what would be done differently today, and even the surprising role Jubilee played in the creation of the very concept.

Age of Apocalypse is coming back in Summer 2015, but it can never be truly duplicated.

Newsarama: Scott, what were the unique circumstances that led up to Age of Apocalypse?

Scott Lobdell: It all started with a message on my answering machine from Bob [Harras, Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics at the time]. "What if Jubilee goes to the mansion and everyone she finds there are claiming to be X-Men, but they aren't really the X-Men?"

I called him at the office from a pay phone and asked, "That would be cool! But what if they were right and she was wrong? What if something happened while she was out that all those people really were the X-Men!"

We got batting the idea around and decided it would be awesome if something happened in the past that changed everything about who the X-Men were, how they came to be, what they fought for. It kept coming back to Charles Xavier... what if Charles Xavier had died before he formed the X-Men? Was it enough for him to have to lived and to have dreamed?

We knew we wanted Legion to go back in time and kill his father -- but we couldn't figure out why. I think it was Fabian who finally said "He kills him by accident!" And then we were off to the races.

A week or so later, after it was decided we were going to tell this massive four month crossover event, I was in the office with Bob and marketing called. They asked how they should promote this unwieldy beast. Bob was looking at me and pretended to cut my throat – as if to say we are going to cancel all the books since Xavier was dead. Bob was telling them, straight faced, that we were simply going to cancel all the books and start with issue one across the line... we were laughing at the sheer audacity of the absurdity of cancelling the number one comic book line on the planet and starting over with totally new characters and concepts for four months. Ridiculous.

Bob hung up the phone, a little pale. "They love it."

We had a writers summit a few weeks later where Bob, Fabian and I handed out the overview to all the other writers. (This was before NDAs, when people used to trust each other. But then this was also before BleedingCool, too.) It said "This is the big story. We need to make sure you hit this, this and this. Have fun!"

I'd say it was about a month or two later I was asked to speak to a retailer conference in Baltimore. The head of marketing at the time was very excited and supportive of me addressing the retailers to discuss our plans... and I am always happy to talk in front of an audience.

It wasn't until I started talking and cheerily and excitingly explaining that we were "simply" going to kill of Professor Xavier and cancel all the X-Books and relaunch with all new titles... that I realized I'd been set up big time! The retailers were panicked, furious! I guess in retrospect I can see why – but I had been immersed in the story and the character designs and in the sheer overwhelming fun we were all having with the process of creating this crossover... I wasn't thinking about the sheer terror a ballroom full of retailers were feeling as a writer (what is he doing up there?!) was telling them that for four months there would not be any X-Men books as they knew them.

Mweyer wrote:The 1990’s are not a time comic book fans remember with joy, especially if you were a Marvel fan. The company went all out for the speculator boom as the decade began with every ridiculous idea you can think of: Die-cut, foil-embossed, polybagged with trading cards, multiple covers, hologram covers, the works. We got the X-Men books spreading in volume and taking on incredibly convoluted ideas and “mysteries.” Throw in the need for “epic events that change everything” and the result were horrors from the Clone Saga to Teen Iron Man and more.

And yet...in the midst of all this...came something truly special. A storyline that proved that such “events” really can work out, even from the amazingly complex X-Books. A tale that has been popular with effects but still stands wonderfully on its own as a fantastic story that can be read even by non-X-Men fans.